Kind of a slowly paced evening tonight, as several members of the group were absent. The first order of business for the evening was a meeting called by Nikolai, the primary purpose of which was to rally the group and refresh everyone’s memories on why they were working together. According to Nikolai, the group faced several dangerous enemies, including the following: Captain Elias and the unknown (female) necromancer he served, the priest of Tharizdun they had left in control of the lost temple in the Yatils, their former companion Sabian, who was in the thrall of the demon skull Ja’vhan, their former associate Mirella and whatever force currently dominated her, and finally whoever or whatever (Graz’zt?) stole the ore from the upper works of Delvenbrass.

After laying all of these facts out on the table, Murray elected to discontinue his association with the group, and was last seen outside the Cargo Gate, presumably seeking passage elsewhere. Demios, though newly joined with the party, elected to remain, and Tarqualan cited the knowledge that since Capt. Elias presumably still served the Hierarchs of the Homed Society in some capacity, anything which weakened them was to the betterment of his own people in the Vesve. The others cited various personal reasons for continuing their quest, and it was agreed that time and information were valuable commodities to be sought. As the others left, Nikolai called Milik aside and informed him that according to another vision he’d had, some demonic force had taken an active interest in the hobniz sorcerer, so he might want to take extra precautions with regard to his lodgings and whatnot.

After the meeting, Kalik sought out Sabian’s whereabouts by questioning his father, a boot-maker off of Marsh Street. The father revealed that Sabian was still alive, though had apparently taken ill since his return to the city, so much so that his father feared for his life. He gave Kalik directions to his son’s apartments after measuring him for a pair of winter boots. Kalik stopped along the way at a bakery (the same bakery that his former companion Ivan’s ex-girlfriend, Melisande had lived at the last time he’d been in town) to pick up a variety of pies, doughnuts, and other pastries. He also stopped in across the street where Kendradell had resumed singing for the primarily dwurin patrons, thinking to bring along Demios, but he was by that time far too inebriated to be of much use.

Arriving at Sabian’s apartments, Kalik was stopped by a leather garbed guard, interrogated, and stripped of weapons before being led into Sabian’s presence. At first, Sabian, who was a withered, wizened shell of the gnome he used to be thought that Kalik was someone else come to kill him, but eventually he realized he was only an old friend and was greeted with an hours-long nonstop monologue that detailed Kalik’s adventures since they had last seen one another, punctuated with Kalik feeding Sabian pies and pastries as he talked (and talked, and talked). Eventually Sabian revealed in whispered gasps that he had lost the skull to Mirella, and that he had risen high enough in the Slayer’s Guild with the skull’s aid prior to that point to have the prices on all their heads lifted.

Meanwhile, in another part of town, Milik used several spell matrices supplied by the College of Magic (at great cost, of course) to craft himself a familiar. The (currently unnamed) statuette of a winged man with eagle’s claws for feet and bat-like wings upon it’s back was crafted from solid steel and enchantments were laid upon it to give it sentience and motion, and finally it was bound to Milik as his familiar.

Nikolai, meanwhile, cloistered himself in the temple of Lendor, casting divination magics to learn as much as he could about the coming days. He learned initially that in ten days time, Captain Elias would be in the city of Fax, that Mirella had stolen the skull from Sabian six months prior to his question, and that if left unopposed, Captain Elias would achieve his ultimate goals in eleven years, four months, and seven days… but what those goals might be were unknown.

Tarqualan spent many hours in the libraries at the Gray College seeking more knowledge about Crystal skulls, and learned that two primary types were known to exist. The first, created by the Suloise, were demonic bindings created for the most part in the days before their empire fell. The second type were sacred to Nerull, and came in a variety of colors, typically crafted from a large gemstone instead of crystal.

On the 23rd of Wealsun, Kalik left the city to journey to the village of Fadadia where he had originally taken his vows and had first heard of the Sword of Nogre. His mission was two-fold; first, he hoped to meet once again with the minstrel who had first told him the story of the sword, and second, after having heard so many of Nikolai’s visions, he went seeking solitude to perhaps receive on of his own…

The days rolled past while the party searched various sources of information, but eventually on the 2nd of Richfest their idyllic existence was shattered when they learned that the night before, as the Inn where she was performing was serving their last round of drinks, a dwur and three humans had sprung from the crowd, knocked Kendradell on the head, and hustled her out onto the street before any of the (mostly intoxicated) patrons or workers could react. She was then tossed into a waiting carriage and spirited away; her pet mountain lion appeared to have been drugged, as it neither rose to her defense nor could the frightened staff rouse it until the next morning…